Moving data from a Performa 577 to a MacBook

[GirthP]

Well gang, I am going to be trying the impossible!

Well, maybe not impossible, but definitely exciting!

My friend has a Performa 577 with a possibly functioning modem, a possibly functioning zip drive (no disks found yet ), and a broken CD drive.

I have an Airport Extreme Base Station (with a modem).

The plan is to have her computer dial into mine, and then upload the 13.5MBs that she wants to get off that old box. I have NO idea what to do when the two computers connect, IF they connect! I'm hoping that they will resolve IP addresses, and I can see the MacBook's Shared folders.

If you have ANY ideas, or can see something coming I could avoid, let me know!!!

Thank you!!

Brennan

 

[Makosuke]

Even if that does somehow work, it's going to take forever. Seems like you'd be a whole lot better off finding either a cheap USB Zip drive that you can use on your Mac (shouldn't be hard--check local junk shops) or finding somebody who has both a functioning Zip drive and a functioning CDR drive or internet connection, and have them either put the files on a disc or email them to you.

If that's no good or the Zip drive doesn't work, you might try to find a working SCSI Zip drive in a junk shop--I know I can get one for maybe $5 in my local "crusty electronics" place.

Or, if you can get your hands on a working USB floppy drive (again, should be easy--I can buy stacks of them for a few bucks), copy the data onto floppies and use that method to transfer to your MB. Slow, but it'll work eventually. You might be able to use DOS formatted floppies and a PC, but I'm not sure if that Mac will have trouble writing files to a DOS floppy.

If none of the above work, well, good luck with the modem!

(It's unfortunately a SCSI drive, so that makes pulling the drive and direct transferring almost impossible.)

 

[GirthP]

Thanks for the response.

Yeah, the modem will take a long time. But if I can get it working, then I can start moving stuff while I hunt down other methods.

I took the hard drive out and realized that the scsi drive wasn't going to be easy, and even if I could get another computer to read it hardware - wise, I doubt I could parse the file structure...

 

[Batt]

Connect the two with an ethernet cable and enable sharing. Should work. You might need an ethernet "crossover" cable due to the age of the Performa.

 

[kepner]

If the Performa has an Ethernet port, you should be able to network. I occasionally still copy files that I left behind on my PowerBook 3400 (running OS 9) by wiring it to the router in my home and then connecting to its IP address from my PowerBook G4 (running Leopard). I've kept the 3400 around for this reason, since it also has a floppy drive, it's the only way for me to get the contents of a floppy disk onto my G4.

 

[Makosuke]

Those don't have an ethernet port, which is why this is such a hassle. I'm pretty sure they don't even have an AAUI port for an external ethernet dongle.

They should have a comm slot (is that what the modem is in?), which I think ethernet cards exist for, though finding one outside eBay probably isn't easy. I'd think the Zip method would be easier since the hardware is so much more common (not to mention you won't need to get the network stuff set up on the old Mac), but if that fails you could check an old electronics shop or go eBay for one.

 

[GirthP]

Naw, ethernet would have been a breeze!

Well, I found my local Macintosh Users Group mail list, and BINGO!

Someone had a USB Zip Drive, and two disks. They let me borrow them, and I was able to move all the files onto my MacBook Pro. Now..... the next problem is how to convert all these damn AppleWorks 5 files to RTF or some universal format... ughh.

I've got icWord, but would love a batch command to run all the files through it and save them. Is there an easy way to select a bunch of files in automator and then run a script on them?

I doubt it will be any easier than just opening them up and saving them... so we'll see


Thank you for the replies!!

I'll let you all know how it goes!

( I was kinda looking forward to the whole modem thing.... but this was oodles easier)